


stay with me, hold my hand

by brokenspaces



Series: Blue Is In Love With Her Raven Boys [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Noah Czerny and Glitter, One Shot, Platonic Relationships, might make this a series who knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25269901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenspaces/pseuds/brokenspaces
Summary: Blue gives Noah a makeover and they talk about their relationship. That's it. That's the whole thing.
Relationships: Noah Czerny & Blue Sargent
Series: Blue Is In Love With Her Raven Boys [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1830727
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	stay with me, hold my hand

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I've only consumed angst no happy ending content for the past three weeks and turns out that's not good for my rapidly declining mental health so here's some blue loves her raven boys and noah loving glitter content that i wrote at four am this morning

Noah lit up when he was near Blue. Now she knew why he did, that it was because she was a battery and he was seven-years-dead and tired, but it still felt nice when he did. Adam still stumbled near her, Ronan bristled at anything new, and Gansey was… Gansey. But Noah lit up and grabbed her hand without thought.

Noah was constant in a way that made her a little sad. His fingers were always cold. He was always smudgy. He would always be dead. Still, she got used to cold fingers brushing against her arm or brushing against her neck as he twisted his fingers in her hair, to the sound of his voice coming alive beside her when she’d been alone a moment ago, to not reacting when he walked beside her in a crowded hall. 

Before Gansey, and before Adam, even, he was always there, bumping shoulders with her and laughing softly. It was not like Adam’s soft laugh. It was like hearing loud laughter from a distance, the echo of something bright and big. That was Noah. A far-off view of someone who was bright and big. It was sad, but the quiet was sometimes comforting. 

Blue mourned him a little, but it was hard to mourn someone when they were standing in front of her, looking solid in the daylight and talking about being thrown out of a window. Blue watched how he moved. It was a certain brand of moving that was undeniably  _ teen _ . His face was a little hollow, and the ever-present smudge made her shiver, but it was young. The saddest thing about Noah is that he looked alive. She couldn’t imagine him as a dead thing.

“And then I was like--” Noah mimed diving out of a window. He overshot it by a few inches, cramming one foot against the edge of her bed and the other slipped across a shiny bit of fabric Blue had been saving. In a mess of limbs, he tangled himself to the ground, landing with a solid  _ thud _ . Blue, ever compassionate, laughed her ass off at him. 

“It was  _ exactly _ like that?” she asked, still cackling. A loose pillow was thrown into her face. Blue threw it right back. 

“Shut  _ up. _ That’s mean!” Noah laughed. His laugh was still quiet, but Blue could see the edges of something bigger under it. He didn’t make any move to get up. Instead, he seemed to be staring at the space under her bed. Blue flopped onto the bed to look at what caught his attention. Her hair flopped down with her, and Noah instinctively toyed with the edges. “I didn’t know you wore nail polish,” he said, pointing to a collection of half-used nail polish bottles in a clear box. Blue shrugged as well as she could while hanging upside-down. 

“I mean, sometimes, but usually they chip off in a week.” She pulled the box out, sliding it over Noah. He went straight for the glittery one. His eyes were wide as he shook the bottle, watching the glitter stir up then settle. Blue watched him watch the glitter. She wondered if he liked glitter before, or if it had been a result of his ghostliness. “Do you want me to paint your nails?” she asked. Then she frowned at herself. “Would that even work? How do ghost nails work?”

“I don’t know,” Noah said. “I’ve never tried before.” There was something shuttered in his look. Still, he stared at the glitter. Usually, this was where Blue would huff and put her hands on her hips and scoff something about toxic masculinity, but Noah looked so soft and unsure she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t disintegrate at the smallest push. 

“Then let’s try it,” she said. “For science.” It was kind of something Gansey would do, all smiles and gentle pushing. The thought made Blue scowl at herself. 

“For science,” Noah repeated. Then he nodded once. Twice. He threw her the nail polish and splayed his hands out in front of him. Blue shook the bottle. Orla was better at this than her, but Blue had a steady hand and a good eye. She took his hand in hers. It was cold, as always. There was always dirt under his nails. She did her best not to think about how it got there. They had tried to scrape it out once, but no matter how hard they tried it didn’t change. She felt how Noah stiffened when the brush swiped his nail. Blue watched his face. He frowned a little.

“I thought it would feel colder,” he said.

“Well, you’re already cold,” Blue offered. Seeing how his arm didn’t explode once his thumb was painted, Noah relaxed and Blue made quick work of his left hand. He tried to bring it up to his face, but Blue made a squawking noise. “Careful! Don’t mess them up before they dry!”

Noah startled and laid his hand as carefully flat as he could. Blue smiled. Noah kept stone-still as she painted his right hand, then painted over with the second coat. She talked about school, and about her clothes, and he laughed softly and said such terrible things in his distant way that Blue snorted and nearly smudged both of his hands. Finally, she capped the bottle, surveying her work. Orla would have done a better job than her, but Noah's nails were neat and sparkling silver and purple. Noah wiggled his fingers, still careful. 

“Glitter,” he observed. Blue stared at him. The sequins from one of her unfinished projects caught in the light from her window and flashed light across Noah’s cheekbones. Blue snapped her fingers and sprung up. 

“I have an idea. Stay here.” Blue made sure to plant a solid hand on Noah’s solid shoulder before clambering down the hall to Orla’s bathroom. Orla was crouched, fully clothed, in the bathtub, painting her nails bright pink. She scowled at Blue, and Blue scowled back. Blue threw open her cabinet and grabbed a few things before Orla could react. “CanIborrowthisthankyouokaybye!” Then she was thundering down the hall again to Noah. 

He was sitting exactly how she left him. Blue was equally amused and relieved. Sometimes, she would leave a room, and he would be gone when she came back. Sometimes, he would be reenacting his death, clawing at invisible dirt. He was still sitting by the edge of her bed, head perched on the covers to stare at his drying nails. Blue plopped down in front of him again. She fanned out the palettes and brushes she had collected in front of him. 

“Is that… makeup?” he asked. Blue flipped open the first palette, tilting it so he could see the glitter. 

“What’re you gonna do about it? You can’t mess up your nails or I’ll kill you.” Noah gave her a flat stare. “I’ll revive you and then kill you again,” she amended. She dipped her finger in the silver and held it up to him. Orla had splurged on the  _ good _ glitter, and it shimmered prettily. “Yay or nay?” Noah looked at her, then back at her finger. His lips pursed, and a crease appeared between his eyebrows. 

“Ronan and Adam and Gan--”

“If they say a single word against them, I’ll puree their balls and shove them into their collective urethras,” Blue said. Noah winced at the words, bringing his elbows and legs in to curl protectively around himself. 

“That’s… evocative,” he said. 

Blue laughed at him. “ _ Evocative _ . You sound like Gansey.”

“ _ Mean _ ,” he hissed playfully. “I would never accidentally call you a prostitute.” Blue laughed loudly, and Noah laughed softly.

“He’s never going to live that down, huh?” Blue asked.

“Never,” Noah affirmed.

Blue held out her shiny finger. “So?”

Noah considered the array of colors and sparkle in front of him. “Okay,” he said after a moment. Blue nodded toward him. 

“Close your eyes and raise your eyebrows.” He did so, squeezing his eyes tight and jutting his chin out. Blue laughed at him again. “You have to  _ relax _ .” He complied. 

Blue realized she didn’t really know what she was doing. Carefully, she smudged her finger across his eyelid. He wrinkled his nose at the feeling. His skin was cold on his face, too. His chest rose and fell slowly as she worked. It was a little like painting, Blue found, as she swiped her finger across his paper-white cheek. Neither of them spoke. It was calming to do this, painting her friend’s face and forgetting he was dead and she was cursed. His slack expression reminded her of the smell of mint and buckwheat, Gansey’s pillows, Noah’s lips on hers. 

Thinking about kissing Noah didn’t make her face go hot or her stomach go all squirming the way they did when she thought about kissing Gansey. It felt comfortable, sweet, but she yearned for the kissing itself more than Noah kissing her. 

It was still nice. The kiss was very Noah. It was comforting and sweet and cold against her. But, Blue found herself thinking, it wasn’t very  _ romantic _ . Orla would scoff at her for it, but it was true. Noah’s hand felt comfortable in Blue’s and he was nice when he kissed her, and that was it. Blue fished stickers from under her bed, shushing Noah when he made a questioning noise. She pressed them against the bridge of Noah’s nose and across his cheekbones. It was a very nice nose. They were very nice cheekbones. Still no wanting. Not a single butterfly.

And  _ yet _ . Blue considered this as she put more glitter on his face. And  _ yet _ she couldn’t imagine life without him, laughing and knocking elbows and worrying he was going to disappear again. 

“Okay, done!” she said, placing the last star. Noah’s eyes opened, and he wrinkled his nose and crossed his eyes to look at his face. There were shapes and smudges splattered across the top half of his face, all sparkly, little glittering lines curling off of his eyes, star-shaped stickers dotted across his face like stars. His shoulders wiggled excitedly. 

“Did you destroy my face? Can I see?” he asked. Blue scrambled for a mirror. 

Noah went quiet when he saw himself. Blue felt a little worried. She got carried away halfway through thinking about Noah. He turned his head, watching how the colors all twisted together in the light. He looked ghostlier like this, all ethereal and fairy-like, but he looked unmistakably there, painted over in full color. Noah looked enchanting. She still didn’t want to kiss him, though. She wanted to lose at pool to him and crab-walk with him and paint glitter onto him with all the force of how she wanted to kiss Gansey, but she didn't want _Noah_ . She wanted his hand in hers as she faced off the world. Noah beamed at her. It made Blue relax and beam back. She didn’t  _ like _ him. 

“I love it,” Noah said, beaming.

“I love you,” Blue said. Noah froze. He frowned. Blue frowned back. 

“You…?” he started, then looked around. “Uh, what?” 

“That didn’t come out right.”

“Yeah, maybe.” 

They stared at each other for a moment as Blue tried to collect her thoughts into something that resembled words. 

“I…” she started. 

“Yep?”

“Don’t…”

“Okay?”

“Want…”

“Uh-huh?”

“To kiss…”

“You’re doing great.”

“You.”

Noah pressed his lips together and nodded. “I get that.”

“But…”

“Are we doing this again?”

“I…” Blue gestured helplessly. “I love you.” There was a word for that. She glared into the air, like the word she wanted would materialize in front of her. 

“I’m lost,” Noah said. He was normal-person-colored now, which meant he was blushing up a storm.

“Platonically!” She snapped her fingers. “Platonically. I love you,” she took his face in her hand, smudging glitter on his chin and neck, “ _ platonically _ .” 

“Oh.” Noah’s eyes lit up. “Oh!” His smile was back, and he was almost too shiny to look at. “I mean, yeah! Yeah!” His hands gripped at Blue’s arms. “I-- I love you too!” 

Blue felt herself start to flush. They were both aware of what the other meant, but that didn’t make professing their love into each other’s faces any less awkward. 

“Cool,” Blue said. 

“Cool,” Noah said. He dropped his hands, and she dropped hers. Noah picked the mirror back up, inspecting himself in it. “I… really like this. Oh! My nails!” They scrambled to lay them flat, and Blue threw herself vertical to check if they were okay. Then Orla came in, screaming about them messing up her palettes, and Blue was flapping her hands around, getting glitter all over her bedsheets, and Noah was laughing, trying  _ so hard _ not to move and mess up his nails, and Noah and Blue loved each other. 


End file.
